JR Elsewhere

Archive for June, 2014

1. Russian Domestic Radio / Use of Shortwave

The Voice of Russia (VoR) as a foreign radio service can probably be considered dead for good. But when it comes to domestic broadcasts, the picture may be somewhat different. Radio Rossii or Radio Rossiya Segodnya (the domestic service not the external “Russia Today” channel) and VGTRK abandoned their long wave and shortwave frequencies earlier this year (January 9 in Radio Rossii’s case), but the Security Council of the Russian Federation appears to have second thoughts about the move. A new agency, under the defense ministry’s jurisdiction, may be in charge of the transmission sites from 2016 on, Radio Eins (RBB) reports, quoting Russian websitelenta.ru.

A shortwave transmitter can reach both local and global audiences,

Oldrich Cip, chairman of the HFCC (high-frequency coordination conference) wrote in an article for UNESCO in 2013.

This is due to the unique long-distance propagation property of shortwave radio by means of multiple reflections from layers in the upper earth’s atmosphere. Shortwave radio can provide service where other platforms such as satellite, FM or Internet are unavailable due to high cost, geographical location, lack of infrastructure, or even during natural or man-made disasters. Receivers are inexpensive and require no access fees. Shortwave radio is important for people living or travelling in isolated regions. It reaches across the digital divide to the most disadvantaged and marginalised societies.

A bluesy QSL card from Kiev, confirming reception of a shortwave broadcast in German, on December 8, 1985.Click picture for Radio Ukraine International (formerly Radio Kiev).

A high-tech country, too, stepped up shortwave broadcasts recently. On March 30, Radio Japan added broadcasts in Japanese to eastern Europe, on shortwave frequencies, from relay stations in the UK, the UAE, and directly from Japan – see Japan/UAE/U.K. Additional broadcasts of Radio Japanhere. Apparently, NHK acts on the assumption that there are Japanese nationals in the region who still listen to shortwave.

But not only man-made disasters may highlight the importance of shortwave. Many places in Asia are highly vulnerable to natural disaster. From June 5 to 6 this year, Radio Australia, the BBC World Service (Thailand relay), Radio Vatican, SLBC Sri Lanka, FEBC Philippines, IBB (this appears to be the International Broadcasting Bureau), MGLOB Madagascar, Radio Japan (Palau relay), RTC (i. e. China Radio International and CPBS transmission sites in China), and KTWR Aganatook part in a shortwave trial program, practical test of a project developed by the HFCC – international Radio Delivery association in cooperation with Arab States and Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Unions.

1) I don’t know of any CNR/CPBS stations outside China, but the frequency wasn’t listed for China at the time. Probably, CPBS’ sole purpose for broadcasting on 15250 kHz was to jam the Voice of America broadcast on the same frequency. However Shortwave-Info lists CPBS as a “CNR-1 mystery”, broadcasting daily from 22:01 to 22:02 UTC.2) Should have been English program at the time, according to schedule.3) Intermittent Morse signals; fine otherwise.4) Only the carrier signal audible, apparently without any modulation.

1. NPC Standing Commission hears Budget and Final Accounts

In his capacity as China’s top legislator (and CCP Politburo Standing Commission member) Zhang Dejiang (张德江) was present at the second plenary meeting of the 12th National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee’s 9th session, reviewing the final accounts of the 2013 budget. CCTV‘s main evening news, Xinwen Lianbo:

The second plenary meeting of the 12th National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee’s 9th session was held in Beijing at the Great Hall of the People, in the afternoon of June 24. Committee chairman Zhang Dejiang attended.

十二届全国人大常委会第九次会议24日下午在北京人民大会堂举行第二次全体会议。张德江委员长出席。

Vice committee chairman Ji Bingxuan chaired the meeting. 162 Standing Committee members were attending, and the quorum as stipulated by law was therefore met.

吉炳轩副委员长主持会议。常委会组成人员162人出席会议，出席人数符合法定人数。

On behalf of the State Council, finance minister Lou Jiwei delivered a report concerning the 2013 central final accounts. In 2013, the central government had overall revenues of 6.02 trillion yuan RMB, achieving 100.2 per cent of the budgeted amount, and an increase of 7.2 per cent over the 2012 budget. Central government expenditure was at 6.85 trillion yuan RMB, or 98.5 per cent of the budgeted amount, an increase of 6.8 per cent. In general terms, the implementation of the central budget had been good, but with some problems. The next steps will emphasize the strong advance of the fiscal and taxation system, close attention to fiscal and tax policies, measures, and implementation, tangible strengthening of local government debt management, and great efforts to consolidate financial and economic order etc..

On behalf of the State Council, National Audit Office general auditor Liu Jiayi reported the 2013 central budget implementation and other revenue and expenditure audits. After reporting, item by item, central budget revenue and expenditure and final accounts drafts, central financial management, the budget implementation and final accounts at the central government authorities, government debt, key people’s-livelihood projects and mineral resources, state-owned financial institutions, state-owned enterprises and other audits as well as major clues of illegality, he made the following suggestions for the next steps in work improvement: strict financial discipline, tangible administrative achievements in accordance with the law, financial management in accordance with the law, accelerating the transformation of government functions and streamlining administration and delegating powers to the lower levels, deepening the promotion of fiscal and taxation system reform, making efficient use of assets, optimizing structures, and increasing the use efficiency of financial funds.

The meeting heard National People’s Congress Financial and Economic Affairs Committee deputy chairman Liao Xiaojun’s report on the 2013 central final accounts review. The committee believes that the 2013 central final accounts draft reflects the good implementation of the central budget, and recommended the approval of the draft. As for the problems [the draft] also reflected, the committee suggested to accelerate the promotion of budget system reform, further standardization of budget and final accounts management, the building of a comprehensive governmental debt management system, and the strengthening of auditing and supervision.

On behalf of the State Council, People’s Bank of China deputy governor Liu Shiyu delivered a work report concerning the strengthening of supervising and averting financial crisis. He said that in recent years, in the face of the complications and changes in the international economic situation, downward pressures in the domestic economy had become stronger, the financial crisis had led to accumulated risks, the State Council had issued a number of policies and measures conducive to averting and defusing financial crisis, safeguarding financial stability, and conducive to economic restructuring and transformation of development methods. [The State Council] had firmly kept to the bottomline of not allowing systemic or regional financial crises. The strengthening and improvement of financial supervision and management and prudent macro-management, the continuous comprehensive promotion of macro-economic stability and a modern financial system that supports substantial economic development.

[…] China launched a campaign on Friday to rid the Internet of audio and video materials that promote terrorism and violence. The move is aimed at safeguarding social stability in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and long-term peace, according to the SIIO.

Meantime, authorities on the ground in Xinjiang are victorious, People’s Dailyreported on Monday. 96 per cent of “terrorist gangs” had been detected during planning stage (or in their embrionyic stage, 在萌芽状态) and been wiped out (or knocked out, 打掉), “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region” Public Security Bureau deputy director Wang Qianrong (王谦榕) reportedly told a press conference. High-pressure policing (打高压态势), attacks at first opportunity (主动进攻) and staying ahead of the enemy (先发制敌) had been instrumental in normalizing the situation.

3. Staying ahead of the Enemy (in Mainland and Hong Kong)

Despite what organisers called the biggest cyber attack in Hong Kong’s history, hundreds of thousands of people have been able to voice their opinion in an unofficial pro-democracy referendum that started on Friday, the BBC‘s Juliana Liuwrote in the broadcaster’s China blog on Monday. Some 689,000 ballots had been cast on June 23, by 14:00 GMT. It probably helped that 15 polling stations provided opportunities to cast one’s vote in person.

They had a choice between three candidates for the office of Hong Kong Chief Executive. Occupy Central is the major force between these – unofficial – elections.

The Economist, obviously sympathetic to the elections, warns that in China’s most prosperous city, both sides have a lot to lose and should be looking for a way to climb down. Beijing shouldn’t alienate Hong Kongers who, in a free election, … would have probably chosen a pro-China candidate anyway, but many of whom moved towards the radicals’ camp after a senior mainland fgure talked about dealing with disorder by sending in the Chinese army.

Also on Monday, with the number of votes at 700,000 by then, Foarp notes that to put pressure on a free society [is] liable to back-fire by driving people to the other side. That said, Occupy Central could have made more of the opportunty afforded to them by Beijing’s intransigence. By giving the voters a choice between the central-government proposed system and their democratic cause, the voters’ message could have been made so much clearer.

An unfriendly interpretaton would be that maybe neither Beijing nor Occupy Central want to leave anything to chances. A friendlier one would be that Occupy simply wanted to demonstrate democratic practice. The turnout, anyway, was remarkable – too remarkable to be officially noted in China. The searchword combination 622 Referendumwas censored on Sina Weibo as the Occupy referendum approached, Fei Chang Dao noted on Sunday.

The footage, published on websites like sina.com, suggests that Wu Ping cut into a truck’s safety zone, long after the opportunity to leave the highway in accordance with the traffic regulations had passed.

Wu reportedly died at the scene. The truck driver, Wang Guocai (汪国财) from Anhui Province, was taken to Tongde Hospital (浙江省立同德医院) with injuries. According to reports, he expressed sadness about Wu Ping’s death, in interviews with Xin’an Evening Post (新安晚报) and the official provincial website Anhui Net.

“In 1993, me and my wife, one after another, lost our jobs. In 1995, I obtained my driver’s license and began to drive”, Wang Guocai recalled. This time, Yao, his boss in Shexian County told him to take logs to Hangzhou. On June 12 in the early morning, at about 00:20, he went onto the highway, arrived at Lin’an motorway service station at three in the morning, slept on the truck until about five in the morning, and then continued. At about six in the morning, he was on Hangzhou Western Beltway, approaching northern Sandun Expressway Exit, when he suddenly startled [Update, 20140804: 感到车身一震 – this could mean “to feel an impact on the car/vehicle” – advice welcome], then lost control of the truck, and finally hit the isolation strip. During those seconds, Wang Guocai had felt that “this was it”.

Wu Ping was born in March 1957. He spent most of his time as an academic with work in the agricultural field, with several years of experience abroad, at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, from 1989 to 1994. He had become a CCP member in July 1986.

Liang was born October 1947, with Boye County, Hebei Province as his ancestral home. Education (not necessarily re-education) through labor in November 1968 (參加工作).

Liang apparently started his career in 1968, in Panyu, now a district within Guangzhou, at what was the Lianhuashan People’s Commune (莲花山公社) at the time. He worked there as an announcer at the commune’s propaganda station. He became a cadre at Foshan Area Bureau of Public Security (PSB) in 1970, a post he held until 1976. He joined the CCP in August 1973 and became pre-trial and technical investigation department deputy section chief at the same area bureau of public security in 1976. It was during that time that he also studied sociology and law at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, from September 1982 to July 1984, in what can probably be best described as specialized courses for active cadres (Chinese: 幹部專修科學習). After heading a PSB branch office in 1984/85, he became deputy director of the Foshan PSB, plus the unit’s deputy secretary of the party committee. He became the unit’s director and secretary of the party committee in 1991. In July 1998, he became deputy director of the CCP Guangdong department of public security, and deputy chairman of the political consultative conference of Guangdong Province. He had apparently become Guangdong’s police chief by summer 2000.

Liang apparently rose in the wake of Chen Shaoji (陈绍基), a Guangdong native in the public security service. Chen’s career came to a sudden end in 2009, amidst allegations of severely violating party discipline, while Liang remained Guangdong political consultative conference deputy chairman until January 2011, when he stepped down, having reached the age limit, according to Baike Baidu.

The Communist Party of China can’t live with the facts – it can’t even coexist with them. Anyone who thinks that we can “get past” the Tian An Men massacre is wrong. China’s collective leadership itself never got past it, and may never get past it. Nor can their business friends, supporters and well-wishers, at home or abroad. Just as stone can’t rot away, the memory of June 4, 1989 lingers. This memory is the touchstone few people inside China dare to touch upon – not the Chinese nomenklatura, nor their beneficiaries, and those who are both administrators and beneficiaries least of all. You comrades have been working hard, Deng Xiaoping told military commanders on June 9, 1989. The CCP, obviously, isn’t advertising the speech, but isn’t hiding it either – People’s Daily online apparently has the speech in full in its archive.

The only official evaluation so far: Deng Xiaoping defends his reform policies of economic openness and political repression, June 9, 1989 (click picture for video)

Those in China who remember, and want to remember publicly, are threatened. In an interview with the New York Review of Books, Hu Jia said that for entering Tian An Men Square on June 4, he could receive a twelve-year prison sentence, and that since February 24 this year, his movements have been restricted by the Beijing Municipal Domestic Security Corps and the Tongzhou Branch of the Beijing Municipal Security Detachment, the latter of who had been around since July 2, 2004.

2.Ar Dee, an ethnic Tibetan, makes no apologies for her Tib-lish. This was posted nearly two weeks ago, but the topic is basically timeless. It’s about a language we probably won’t find on Google Translate any time soon. About a moment when the author yearned to call on some supernatural power to fix her tongue.

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3. Sichuanese police held anti-terrorism drills in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, apparently late last month. The drills included the handling of self-immolations. This struck me as weird when reading about it on the exile radio stationVoice of Tibet‘s website, but CCTV Englishactually confirms it. Foarp – see 1. – might have a point. Chinese media for foreign audiences making fun of themselves.-

The “socialist core values” that the country now upholds embody the thoughts of ancient masters, the aspirations of the nation’s role models, ideals of revolutionary martyrs and expectation of all Chinese people,

China Radio International (CRI) quotes Xi. Xi Jinping arrived at Haidian National Primary School in Beijing at 9:30 local time, according to this Xinhua report, and a student offered him a red scarf on arrival. How his heart pounded with excitement when joining the young pioneers in 1960, Xi told the kids, asking if they didn’t feel the same way.

“Yes”, a child answered. “Why is it so?” “Because it is sort of an honor.” The general secretary [Xi Jinping] said: “I have seen hope on your faces, the hopes of the motherland and the people. It’s just as said in the oath: one needs to be always prepared, to take one’s turn on duty in the future.”

Referred to as Xi Dada (kind of Uncle Xi) on another occasion, the general secretary was Xi Yeye (Grandfather Xi) at Haidian National Primary School, maybe for the grandfatherly stories he told. The core lesson from Xi’s recollections was that to move from one stripe to two stripes to becoming a standard bearer among the young pioneers required a lot of work, a student is quoted as summarizing the listening experience.

7. … but there’s no need to fear Japan anymore. This, anyway, could be the positive message you might extract from the second picture in Chang‘s collection: nearly seven decades after America won the 2nd World War in the Far East, Japan finally submits to Washington, in in the shape of Itsunori Onodera, Japan’s minister of defense. People slightly familiar with China and/or Japan will know that many Chinese and Japanese men hate to be hugged, and might flinch if it happens, but neither Chang nor South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo could apparently resist the temptation. At least, the South Koreans didn’t openly doubt Onodera’s manhood: U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel (left) chats with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera ahead of a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

A rat once eaten and then returned …

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… probably in a fit of bulimia.

Chang, if you find one of these pictures repulsive, you aren’t a man either!

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8. And as we started with propaganda (see “1.“), let’s wind up with propaganda, too: